Thursday, August 2, 2012

Meet Devereux Armentage - Councilman

Title: Councilman
for the North Eastern US Vampire Council representing the state of

Pennsylvania

Biography:

Devereux
François-Michel Armentage, Vicomte de Rouen, was the eldest son of the Michel
Jean-François Armentage, Comte de Rouen, and Marguerite Isabeau Armentage nee
Devereux, Comtesse de Rouen. His upbringing, like many children of noble
parents, was relegated to a succession of nannies and tutors with little
interaction with his birth parents unless he participated in some mischief that
required discipline. In his quest for attention, his antics grew until his
father sent him away to boarding school.

His
first years at the prestigious Collège de Sorbonne were unmitigated hell. As a
fresh young lad straight from the smaller viscounty of Rouen, Devereux was
adventurous and gullible – a dangerous combination in the cutthroat halls of
the university. The hazing by the older students often left the nobleman beaten,
humiliated, and broke. Two long years passed before things began to improve.

His relief
came in the form of a middle-aged professor of Greek Literature. The instructor
took the lad under his wing, tutored him in those few subjects his phenomenal
memory was of little aid, and eventually schooled him in the art of love and
passion. Devereux had dallied with many a maid by this point but his
experiences all paled beneath the intense pleasure he received from his
teacher’s hands, lips, and thrusting manhood. The pair experimented with all
sorts of hedonistic pleasures and often brought a third or even fourth eager
participant into their bed – be it male or female.

Though
he reveled in the decadence of his instructor’s bed (and office, and the
classroom after hours, and the hedge maze…), he was called home once the unrest
that would become the Revolution began. His father, brothers, and Devereux
packed their most precious heirlooms, secured the house, and began the journey
to Le Havre to procure passage to England…and safety. Their plans were foiled
just outside the port city, however, when their carriage was set upon by
bandits preying upon fleeing nobility. When the dust settled and the bandits’
had faded into the wooded countryside, the Armentage family was either dead or
dying and their heirlooms destined for the auction house or pawnshops.

Of
all the things Devereux can remember with his eidetic memory, the three years
that span the date his family left their estate to the date he made his first
kill as a vampire remain a black smear in his mind. He has no memory of leaving
the scene of his family’s slaughter. He has no memory of the vampire who
brought him over. He has no memory beyond a faint impression of blood and death
and terror.

Most
days he prefers it that way.

Since
then, Devereux has created the persona of the hedonistic ne’er-do-well and
lived it to its fullest. He is rarely seen without at least one lover of either
sex, though most of the time he prefers couples. His mode of dress is
flamboyant, a mix of eighteenth century decadence and new age bohemia, and goes
far in hiding his inner torment. Underneath the studied ennui, however, is a
backbone of steel and an unswerving loyalty to those he deems a friend.

(The picture is "Ezequiel" by Victoria Francés. Her work is amazingly good and I encourage everyone to go and drool.)